Requirements Gathering for an inclusive Digital Economy

这项研究旨在了解老年人的需求，因为它会影响工作表现，以及为日益老龄化的劳动力设计适当的可访问技术的概念挑战。数字经济要想取得成功，其提供的服务必须具有真正的包容性，考虑到人口趋势，老年人能够轻松有效地使用这些服务尤为重要。目前许多商业软件的设计都没有考虑到老年员工的特点。由于老年员工的感觉、运动和认知能力下降，他们使用软件的能力不如年轻同事。这是低效的，而且会严重影响这一重要员工的士气。该项目是制定适用于老龄化劳动力的指导方针和软件的第一阶段，从而确保所有人都能接触到数字经济。将进行初步的需求收集工作，将年长员工的需求与年轻员工的需求进行比较。这将是一个由邓迪大学、IBM纽约分校和迈阿密大学招募的工作人员组成的三个中心实验。这些中心在这一领域拥有丰富的经验，是IBM开放合作研究项目的一部分，该项目开发的软件将免费提供，并将满足老年员工的需求。这个实验是对IBM项目的补充。它将引出老员工的It需求，并解决如何最好地将可访问性需求集成到标准软件中的问题。它将汇集该领域的学术领袖，提供有关工人对当前和未来It支持的态度的丰富基本数据，并捕获重要的跨文化和跨代数据。征求老年人对当前信息技术的看法可能很困难，因为他们有不安全感和不称职的感觉，尤其是当问题与他们的就业有关时。与那些不仅可能有技术恐惧症，而且可能对未来技术的特征没有概念的人讨论未来技术也是非常困难的。为了解决这些挑战，我们将使用邓迪大学开发的方法，该方法使用戏剧专业人员的技能来促进与工人群体的讨论。将专门编写短剧（5至10分钟），以说明老年人与数字经济互动时可能出现的问题。剧院暂停怀疑的能力将通过引入道具和简单的模拟来说明尚不存在的技术来利用。这些戏剧将由演员表演给年轻的、年长的工人群体和混合的观众。随后将由一位训练有素的主持人利用戏剧介绍讨论时间。观众将被鼓励与演员（他们将在未来的数字经济中扮演工人的角色）互动，以解决技术和情感问题。主题专家将回答具体的技术问题。听众将被鼓励讲述他们自己和他人的经历，以及他们自己的希望和恐惧，并将被要求对重要问题进行投票。这些讨论将被完整地记录下来，并将提供关于工人偏好、希望和恐惧的定量数据，以及定性数据，包括说明听众个人经历的个人故事。人们发现，这种方法在从不同的群体中获得敏感数据方面非常成功，特别是在明显有不同议程的情况下。使用经验丰富的专业编剧和演员，确保体验将提供适当的数据以及为参与者提供愉快的体验。

This research is aimed at understanding the needs of older adults as it impacts job performance, and the conceptual challenges in designing appropriate accessible technology for an increasingly ageing workforce. For the Digital Economy to be successful, it is vital that the services it offers are truly inclusive, and, given the demographic trends, it is particularly important that they are easily and effectively used by older workers. Much current business software is not designed to be sensitive to the characteristics of older workers who, because of reducing sensory, motor and cognitive performance, are less able to use software than their younger colleagues. This is inefficient and can significantly effect the morale of this important part of the workforce. This project is the first stage in developing guidelines and software which is appropriate for an ageing workforce, and thus to ensure that the Digital Economy will be accessible to all. An initial requirements gathering exercise will be conducted which compares the needs and wants of the older worker with those of their younger colleagues. This will be a three centre experiment with requirements gathering in Dundee University, IBM New York and workers recruited by the University of Miami. These Centres, have substantial experience in this field, and are part of an IBM Open Collaborative Research Project to develop software which will be freely available and which will address the needs of older workers. This experiment is complementary to the IBM project. It will elicit IT requirements for older workers and address the issue of how best to integrate accessibility requirements into standard software. It will bring together academic leaders in the field, provide a wealth of basic data concerning workers' attitudes to current and future IT support and capture important cross cultural, as well as cross generational data.Eliciting the views of older people on current information technology can be difficult because of feelings of insecurity and incompetence, particularly if the questions relate to their employment. It is also very difficult to facilitate a discussion on future technology with people who not only may be technophobic, but may have no concept of the characteristics of future technologies. To resolve these challenges we will use a methodology, developed at Dundee University, which uses the skills of theatre professionals to facilitate discussions with groups of workers. Short (5 to 10 minute) plays will be specially written to illustrate the issues which can arise when older people interact with the Digital Economy. The ability of theatre to suspend disbelief will be utilised by the introduction of props and simple simulations to illustrate technologies which do not yet exist. These plays will be performed by actors to groups of younger and older workers and mixed audiences. This will be followed by a trained facilitator using the plays to introduce discussion periods. The audience will be encouraged to interact with the actors (who will stay in role as workers within the Digital Economy of the future) to address both technical and emotional issue. Subject experts will respond to specific technical questions. The audience will be encouraged to relate their own and others experiences and their own hopes and fears, and will be asked to vote on important issues. These discussions will be fully recorded and will provide both quantitative data on workers preferences, hopes and fears, as well as qualitative data including individual stories which illustrate individual experiences from the audience. This approach has been found to be very successful in eliciting sensitive data from divergent groups, particularly when different agendas are manifest. The use of experienced professional scriptwriters and actors, ensure that the experience will provide appropriate data as well as being an enjoyable experience for the participants.